2013's Accomplish List

At the start of the new year, I decided I was going to take this year to change my body. Well now I think, I need to blog at least the weeks. Recording my thoughts and process is what's best or I will have no idea what is going on.
So I have created a list of things I will accomplish this year.
1. Finish my novel. I've been writing it for over five years. It needs to be finished and then I can work on getting published. December 31st, 2013 is my deadline. If it's not finished, then the project is over. I can't keep doing this to myself.
2. Lose 23 pounds. That's it? That's your goal? Yes. I want that scale to say 199 lbs, and I will be happy.
3. Become a cyclist. I always seemed to like cycle class, so why not become good at it? I discovered a new thing at the gym yesterday. It's a program that the bikes are set up with where you ride on all these different courses from beginner, moderate, to challenges. They are set up with the internet and I've already registered so I can track my progress.
4. Run a 5k. It's not like I'm trying to do a marathon. This is another thing that will let me know, I can do it. Right now, my body doesn't want to train and it's rather upsetting but I can only do what my body allows. I refuse to hurt myself in the process.
5. Know the basics of pole dancing. I am thankful that I have some amazing women in the pole community to help me. If I can invert by the end of the year, hell yeah. If not, I"m not gonna be disappointed. The thing about being a plus size dancer is that it may take it a little longer for us to get things. We are bigger and we have more to hold up, but we are insanely strong for it, body and mind.
6. Become versed in yoga. I love yoga. I know I'm lazy for it but I love it. My plans are to become very knowledgeable of it. I'm trying to find a book right now so I can learn everything about it. I think it will be helpful to me.

It's a small list and it's doable. It's week 3 and this week has been a lazy one. For a few days I kind of lost my way. One day I traded the gym for cake and another day I just didn't want to go to the gym. These are mistakes that happen and I will accept them, then learn from there. I'm still learning to eat better and workout properly.

I will accomplish my goals, and stand proud.

I know I'm a quitter. Don't worry, I'm seeking treatment.

I have to admit, I'd pretty much given up on this blog. In the past couple of months, I've pretty much given up on a lot. I can blame it on finals or work or whatever, I just gave up. I'm a person that never completely finishes something and is a quitter. It's one of the worst feelings in the world.
I've been writing a novel for the past five years that I can't seem to finish. I've had my pole for over a year, I've barely gone past I was last year. Started the gym again last month, not a single pound lost. All these things just add to the list of non-accomplished.
I knew these things wouldn't be easy but I can't even put my own happiness first. The old line still lives, "You can't love someone else until you love yourself." That is true and I know it is, yet I'm too stupid to realize it. I'm that person that will call someone on their bullshit quicker than they can finish the thought but I can't call myself on my own shit.
I give myself slack on my gym membership going to waste at the moment since I'm getting over the flu but what about all the other days I'm not sick?
60 minutes a day is amazing on a Treadmil. 30 minutes is great strength training, and maybe a couple of 60 minute pole sessions during the week would do wonders. There are 168 hours in a week. How is it that I can't spend 5 of those hours on a Treadmil, 2 1/2 a week strength training and 2 hours a week pole dancing?
I'm lazy. I know I am that's how I got 220lbs, well being lazy and over eating, big time. I still continue to and I don't seem to be stopping any time soon.
For awhile I only worried about being in recovery and that was all. As long as I was sober, I was okay. Now I can see that just because I was once an addict doesn't mean I need to only focus on that for the rest of my life. I have another addiction and it's to food. I need to get over this addiction like I did the other one. This is more destructive to me now and it needs to be taken care of. The confidence I had earlier this year is now faded. I don't feel confident most days.
I knew I would and will never been a skinny mini but I couldn't even fallow through with toning what I have. I know part of it is that I have no clue what I"m doing. But still, I'm not taking the extra step to improve myself. Why can't I make myself happy?
Hopefully a new year will solve my current problem. I hope.

Self Discovery is exhausting.

For the past couple of years I've been saying I'm on a journey to self discovery. I don't know about anyone else that has gone down this road, but I'm exhausted. I'm so tired of attempting to start things and then stop. I believe that's the type of person I am though, maybe I can plan things out and fallow through with them but I'm not a completely organized person that plans out their whole life, I'm more spontaneous than I thought.
I've always wanted to be confident. Even the prettiest women in the world are not 100% confident. But I realized that I am more confident than I ever have, even though I'm a size 16 and would love to go down another pant size or two. But I am a person that isn't the biggest fan of exercise. I know a lot about it and if you put in me a gym then I'd kick butt until you pulled me out of it but I don't have the motivation to run around my own block enough times a week to see a difference in my body.
I don't want to balloon and I don't want to always be the size I am. I know it will take a lot for me to change. Also, I don't want something horrible to happen to me and then I have to lose weight. I fear I will never lose the weight.
But I have a lot of fears, come on, I'm not fearless. I fear failure, I fear pain, shit I even fear the dark sometimes. I usually say I fear spiders or bugs but I just hate, dislike, them. I tend to me the one killing bugs instead of my boyfriend so I don't have a phobia. But I do fear failure, but who doesn't.
But on this rocky road, I think I have discovered who I am. To be honest I think I've known who I was from the beginning.

Fat Girl Sin: Disregard

We tend to not listen. Maybe it's because all our lives we are having to deal with people telling us not to do things. They want to tell us what not to eat, that we should get "in shape," or whatever it is related to our weight and habits. Since when did our bodies become everyone else's problem?

In truth our bodies are ours, we have the right to do whatever we want with it. If we want to eat junk food and forget about the consequences, that's our right. If we want to be muscle bound Guido, we can.

Our bodies are our temples, we can decorate it however we want. But all the decorations in the world wont make a difference if we don't listen to leaking roof, the cracking walls, or peeling laminate floor. It doesn't have to be the prettiest building in the world, it doesn't matter if it's a candy shop or a fitness center, as long as the owner's take care of it. The owners wont always be happy with it but they still love owning the building.

I, for one, am a huge non-listener. I didn't listen to my body which caused a kidney infection. I never listened. Still to this day, I don't listen. I learned the hard way that my body refuses to tolerate spicy food with fries in the same sitting. That was a nice bathroom adventure.

Slowly, I'm starting to listen to my body. It's hard since I've spent my whole life ignoring it. "Wow, although I'm full, this plate still has plenty of food on it, I'll eat it." Portion size is another Fat Girl Sin that will be discussed later.

But the past few times I've been to a restaurant, I ordered water because at several places when I ordered Coke or Dr. Pepper, I couldn't taste it. I ordered it with ice, or without, let it sit there for a minute so the fizz could calm itself, still no taste. Only two places I've ordered soda at that I could actually taste, one place is my job where I get it with no ice. But lately when I'm working, I'm taking my big green cheap-o water bottle with water.

I guess my body just doesn't want soda. I've even gotten sick of Orange Crush, a drink I saved when I was having a bad day.

Another bad food of mine is Coldstone. They came out with these Retro themed items. I fell in love with the Hot Fudge Sunday. For a couple of weeks, I ate this Hot Fudge Sunday twice or three times a week. Last week a friend of mine wanted ice cream, so that's where we went and I wasn't satisfied. It was good but it seemed like a task to eat it. So I think I can cross that off my list of wants.

I'm part Italian, I grew up on lots of pasta. I love pasta but I have become to have a love/hate relationship with it. It's usually the first thing I order at restaurants but now, I just don't want it. I'm not completely done with pasta but I just don't want it.

I don't know what's gotten in my head lately. Maybe I'm looking at myself, my building, and thinking, "well that leaky roof needs to be fixed." Last Thursday, I put on some running shoes, headphones and ran the best I could around the block. It wasn't long and it wasn't the best run I've ever done but I did it. I missed Sunday and need to do it today. Probably after this post.

I guess sometimes we just want to listen for once, but only to ourselves. That's the only person worth listening to when we truely see it. Yes we are to listen to doctors about our health but it's hard to listen to someone who doesn't know us personally. We need to listen to what our bodies say, so we can be the best we can be.

It's been a minute

I know, I know. It's been too long. I just got through "The Summer Semester From Hell." I had four classes in eight weeks with the same amount of work you'd have in sixteen to eighteen weeks. On top of that I was in a new major that I thought I might like but it ended up being something I didn't want to do.
I was in Business Administration and although I didn't have a problem learning all the ways to work Microsoft Word, I didn't like all the calculations I would have to do. Numbers are not my thing, words are.
I'm so confused on what I want to do so now I'm going for Culinary Arts. Learning to deal with measurements are gonna be a struggle for me but hopefully I don't get a dickhead teacher. I've seen him around school and he seems like a hard ass but I hope he isn't. I don't know though. I don't know what I for sure want to do. I love to bake and it's my stress release and I love to design. I don't want to deal with the competitiveness of the art but it's something I have to deal with. I still want to be a writer, it's just taking me awhile to write my novel.
I think it will take awhile for me to discover my true personality. Sometimes I get confused or ashamed of what I like. Except for pole dancing. I love it, I'm not ashamed of it. Or my love for Channing Tatum, many know my obsession with him.
But right now, I'm focusing on my style. I'm so sick of wearing solid color clothes and band shirts and jeans with flip-flops. I have some cute shoes, why not wear them? I barely put on makeup anymore and that needs to change. I'm trying to be the cute plus size diva I know I am. This of course has resulted in spending too much money. Ugh. So I decided to take my credit cards out of my wallet because I will end up spending money.
This post is all over the place but it's a update and off my brain. Enjoy. :)

Fat Girl Sin: Pride

I have noticed in myself and some others, pole dancers or not, that once we have uncovered our confidence, we tend to be prideful. At some point we start to think of ourselves as above others. Some of us become cocky. It's just how it works.

Not all plus size girls develop pride when they begin to pole dance but they do confidence. I'm not going to attempt to link this development of pride and pole dancing. I'm just saying that the main thing I've noticed from plus size pole dancers is that they gain confidence. Anyone can gain pride when they gain confidence.

Below is my explanation for why plus size women go past that line of having confidence to becoming prideful.

I came to this realization the other day when I was getting my first evaluation at work. We've never had them before so it was new but I was wanting to know what my bosses thought of me. Well I was told that according to how I rated myself, I thought highly of myself. I didn't want to tell him that I filled out the paper 5 minutes before it was to be due and had to get another copy because I lost mine. Also in the process of getting this second piece of paper to fill out, they had no extra copies so I had to copy someone else's and mark out how they rated themselves and write mine in. My bosses didn't have a problem with that. As long as it was in on time. I never took the time to actually sit down and think.

But he also told me that in order to make myself look good, I put others down in the process. I thought about it for a minute. When I would tell him something, in my mind, I wasn't trying to put others down. I was just simply trying to tell him, "Well certain other people didn't do this when I did, so why are you talking to me about this issue when you need to talk to others about the issues they caused?"

I believe I felt attacked every time my bosses would bring something to my attention. So I went into the mode of protecting myself. There have been jobs, including my current one, that I've felt like I'm being walked on or being taken advantage. I've developed the titled of "Ol' Reliable." This title really pisses me off because they seem to think they can just put anything on me because I'll clean up everyone else's mess. Yeah, no. So when something came up, I protected myself.

But this made me think and view plus size women's reactions to things. We post all over Facebook about how plus size is better than skinny girls. We post that men prefer meat instead of bones, referring them to dogs. I've noticed that the plus size woman gain so much confidence it either comes off as smothering, pathetic, or both. I was hoping my confidence hadn't gone this far but as I was having the meeting with my boss, I realized, "awe shit, I had."

My theory is that we have hidden and downgraded ourselves our whole lives because we didn't have the confidence, or feel worthy, that now that we do, we go overboard. Deep inside we refuse to go back into that place and want to make sure everyone knows how amazing we really are. I'm not saying we should stop showing how amazing we are but we tend to overdue it.

This is not true for all women that have gained confidence but for some, they have taken it too far. I'm sure we have all seen or done this. It's hard to determine when we've gone too far until we either realize it ourselves, or have someone tell us. The ladder is what we don't want to happen. But I'm saying that, yes, be confident. Let everyone see how wonderful you are. Walk around feeling great and like anyone else. Don't feel like an outsider or that you're unattractive because you are to someone.

Me, personally, I like plus size. I don't want to have to kill myself exercising and counting my food. If I want ice cream, I don't want to hate myself for eating it. I've personally struggled with my weight since elementary school. I've dealt with eating disorders. I've binged until I've felt sick, I've starved myself until I couldn't take it anymore. I've even eaten so much and then barracked myself in the bathroom to throw it all up. I've killed myself with exercise until my whole body. I've done it, dealt with it. It is true that the only thing I have been able to do that makes me feeling amazing is to pole dance. For other's it can be running or ballet or other times of workouts. It's all up to the person to find what they like.

This video is a joke video. I like this girl because she has been a dancer and had to deal with being "the bigger stripper." This video just made me laugh and I thought it would be a cute thing to post here because the things she says are true. I've heard almost all of the quotes from one person or another.

Fat Girl Sins: Surrender

In the way I think, we never improve ourselves until we hit rock bottom. When we think we have, but we actually haven't, we will find any excuse not to improve ourselves. We truly have to hit rock bottom, hard, or else we will surrender the challenge.

The other day I got frustrated, I put on a pair of new, and cute, Hanes undies that have thick waist bands and are bikini style. I love these undies because they are wedgie free and when you have an ass like mine, it's like a gift from God. I love to work in them and have no issues but then it's bedtime. I lay in bed and feel the bands pressing into my sides. I get pissed and grab a pair of granny panties instead.

Since I've quit the gym, due to financial problems, I've felt like shit. I've also had the pain in my ankle and leg return just about every day. The other night, I was surfing On Demand and found the fitness section. I did two ten minute workouts that were okay but I wanted some yoga and found a yoga video for 25 minutes.

I'd taken some yoga classes back in February and enjoyed it but I hadn't remembered the moves so I thought I'd do a video. It was a beginners video and thought I'd be okay, I've done those moves before. In the process, I became angry. I couldn't hold my Downward Dog but for a few seconds, plank was out of the question, and I wont even talk about Dolphin pose. Certain other poses were also hard to do. I began watching the clock hoping minutes would turn into seconds. I was extremely frustrated from this twenty minute session that I had an attitude the rest of the day. Even though I finished out the lesson, I surrendered.

The next day I refused to do another yoga video and instead I went to Kickbox Cardio. I became frustrated during this too because I was so uncoordinated. In the process of learning to pole dance, I quickly discovered that just because something looks easy, it's really not. Once again, I surrendered. The next day I walked only half my usual amount and I refused to do anything else.

Then last night I felt like crap all over again. At 11 o'clock I peeled my butt off the sofa and turned on the Kickbox Cardio video. My coordination was better this time. I still became breathless and had to modify certain moves but I finished it and time flied by.

If we just keep doing it, and refuse to surrender, we can meet our goals and enjoy the ride. We have to take our time and develop the skills and this alternative lifestyle that seems to push us back as we try to step forward. Patience is a virtue, they say, and it's developed and mastered just like anything different we try.